Home of the Braised (19 page)

Gav nodded. “He tried. He asked me for help. But I was too late.”

The Keeper drew a breath so deep he shuddered. “Yes,” he said.

Pulse pounding, my heart raced. “Go on,” I said.

The Keeper’s head came up. “Bonder,” he said, speaking Evan’s surname aloud. “His name was predestined. He was our bond. He was kind to me.”

“You knew him, then?” Gav asked.

The Keeper looked as though he wanted to turn around to face the ministry again, but was afraid to. “He gave me coffee, bread. Once in a while, some meat. I was hungry. He was generous.”

I forced myself to tamp down my fearful anticipation, but he had stopped talking again so I prompted him. “You went there, that day? The day he died?”

He nodded.

“What did you see?”

The Keeper positioned his staff directly in front of his body where he gripped it with both hands. His voice was soft, almost a whisper. “The demon was there.
They
were there.”

“They?” I asked.

When he looked at me, he didn’t wear the uneasy glaze of a street-battered homeless man. He was angry. Furious, in fact. “Yin and yang,” he said. If he hadn’t looked so completely in control, I might have lost patience.

“Two halves, two equals.” His gaze roamed over us and he used his index fingers to gesture. “Like you”—he pointed to me—“and you,” he pointed to Gav, “but different.”

“A man and a woman?” I asked.

He nodded.

“They killed Evan?” I asked.

“They killed them all.”

Gav stiffened and I swallowed. “Could you recognize them?” I asked the Keeper. “If you saw them again?”

He took a long moment to stare at us both. “You will see them on your path to enlightenment. The demon fears you, will try to stop you.” He pulled the staff to one side and began walking again, very quickly. “Go,” he said when we followed. “Go, stop the darkness from spreading.”

“Come with us,” I said. “We can get you to a shelter. Get you food.”

“I have all I need.” Suddenly fearful, he glanced around. “Go. The demon must not see me here.”

I followed his gaze across the street and up and down the block. Gav did the same. There were a number of pedestrians and the occasional car passing by, but no one seemed to be paying us any attention. “Please,” I said again. “Let us take you somewhere more comfortable.”

He wagged a finger in my face. “No more talk. Go. I will keep the balance here. You will find the demon. Destroy it. If you can.”

When he took off again, we let him go. There didn’t seem to be anything else we could do about it. “I worry for him,” I said as we watched him disappear down the next corner.

“It looks like he’s lived on the street for a very long time. He’ll be all right.”

“I wish we could do more.”

“We can.” Gav placed a hand on my shoulder. “You heard the man. Let’s go find the demon.”

I STOOD NEXT TO THE FIRST LADY AND JOSH
in the dish storage room in the subbasement.

“It seems wrong, doesn’t it?” Mrs. Hyden asked me. “To be attending to details like choosing china so soon after tragic news?”

“I understand,” I said. “This does seem trivial. But when you think about what’s at stake, what Secretary Cobault stood for and how hard he worked to make this moment happen . . .” I let the thought hang for a few seconds. “I suppose that keeping the talks on schedule is the best we can do to honor his memory.”

Late last night the news had broken that Secretary Cobault had not died of natural causes as was first reported, that he had been killed by an intruder. The White House press secretary had fielded an hour’s worth of questions, but had avoided any mention of ballistics. The reporters had gone crazy with conspiracy theories, suggesting that someone unhappy with the Durasi peace accord may have been behind the shooting. The press secretary had repeated “No comment,” more times than I could count.

Everyone in the White House had held their collective breath after the briefing, wondering if the Durasi delegates would cancel the dinner and peace talks. So far, so good. No such directive had come down. Sargeant had informed me that, unless things changed, the dinner was still on.

Mrs. Hyden wandered about the small area, trying to seem interested but I could tell her heart wasn’t in the task. “What do you think, Ollie?” she asked. “You’ve been part of far more state dinners than we have.”

All I could think of was that we needed clear sailing from this point forward if this dinner was to be a success. A new sensitivity director hadn’t been appointed yet, and so Peter Sargeant was temporarily doing double duty. Had this dinner been arranged months instead of days in advance, or had Sargeant not been occupied by his new responsibilities as chief usher, he would have caught today’s problem much sooner than he had.

The issue that brought us here this morning was that we’d never entertained dignitaries from Durasi in the White House before, and thus, hadn’t known that the color red was wholly inappropriate for use with dinner plates. In their culture, red equated death.

We’d planned our entire dinner expecting to use the abundant Reagan china. I’d been pleased. First Lady Nancy Reagan had worked with the Lenox china company to design a rich-scarlet plate trimmed in gold, with the presidential seal in gold at its center.

Now, a mere two days before the event, the red was out and we had to decide what was in.

Josh wandered between the giant, gray bins that held each of the china collections. While we featured a sampling of every design in the ground floor China Room, it was here that we kept the actual pieces used for serving. He lifted one of the plastic covers and peered in. “I don’t like this one,” he said. “Who wants to eat dinner off of a giant pink flower?”

I peered over his shoulder. “That’s the Grant pattern,” I said as he frowned and moved to examine the next bin.

“I like plain,” he said. “That way it doesn’t change what the food looks like.”

I tended to agree with him. The simpler the better, which was why we’d been so pleased that Mrs. Hyden had chosen the Reagan china. But lamenting the change wouldn’t help anyone now. “We can eliminate most of the early china,” I said. “We don’t have enough pieces in any of those patterns, anyway. We’ll have to focus on the newer collections. Those tend to be the bigger ones.”

I guided them both over to the other side of the room. Big, gray, utilitarian, plastic squares were stacked like pallets on the shelves around us. These were giant glass and cup holders, much like the kind you see in restaurants where the management hopes you aren’t looking.

Mrs. Hyden had started to uncover the Clinton service, a gorgeous, unusual pattern that featured White House architectural elements, when I had an idea. I walked over to a bin holding one of our other Lenox collections, the Truman china, and lifted the plastic protection. “What about this service?” I asked.

Josh hurried over and studied the simple plate with its pale jade border trimmed in gold. “Not bad,” he said.

Mrs. Hyden tilted her head. “I like it.”

“I’m thinking . . .” Although I was hesitant to push for one design over another, she
had
asked for my opinion. I decided to share my thoughts. “This dinner with the Durasi is to signify peace, right?”

Josh nodded.

“Yes,” Mrs. Hyden said, and as she did, I saw in her eyes that she knew where I was going with this.

“Right after the end of World War II,” I continued, “President Truman issued an executive order that permanently changed the presidential seal so that the eagle faced the olive branch, signifying peace, rather than the arrow, signifying war.”

“And this was the first set of china to represent that change,” Mrs. Hyden said.

Josh grinned. “That’s a cool story. Is it true?”

Mrs. Hyden and I exchanged a look. “I’m pretty sure it is,” I said.

“Do we have enough?” Mrs. Hyden asked.

I went over the numbers in my head. “I believe we do. It may be a squeaker, though. I’ll have the staff count every piece to make sure. We’ll do that today. If there’s enough, do you want to use it?”

She nodded. “I think it’s a great idea and sends exactly the right message. Thanks, Ollie.”

Josh was still examining the set. “I think this will work really well,” he said.

I smiled at him. “I’m happy you approve.”

He looked up. “You didn’t forget that I’m helping you for this dinner, did you?”

“How could I forget something as important as that?”

Mrs. Hyden put a hand on her son’s shoulder. “Ollie is being generous, Josh. This dinner is very important to your father, and the kitchen staff is going to be stressed.”

“That’s why I’m there to help,” he explained with a little impatience. “So they can be
less
stressed.”

“I understand,” she said with a pointed look at me. “But if Ollie needs you to get out from underfoot at any time, you’ll do that, right?”

“Mom, I’ll be there to help. I won’t be underfoot even a little bit.” Reading her expression he hastened to add, “But if Ollie asks me to leave, I will. I promise.”

As much as I enjoyed having Josh hang out in the kitchen, having a child around during preparations for a state dinner could prove challenging. Still, I’d agreed when he’d first broached the subject. He was a tough kid to refuse. And the truth was, with his sister having recently vacated the house for a two-week summer camp, Josh was lonely, and not a little bit bored.

“I’m sure we’ll do fine, won’t we, Josh?” I said.

“It will be the best state dinner yet.”

I grinned. “You know it.”

• • •

I BROUGHT ONE OF THE TRUMAN PLATES BACK
to the kitchen with me. Bucky, Cyan, and Virgil were all busy in three different corners of the small area, and I caught Bucky stifling a yawn as he stirred a pot on the massive stovetop. Not for the first time did it occur to me that we were far more relaxed before this state dinner than we’d ever been in the past.

“Here we go,” I announced.

They looked up as one. Cyan was nearest to me and for the first time since I’d known her, it wasn’t the color of contact lenses she wore that I noticed first about her eyes, it was the fact that they were bloodshot.

“You okay?” I asked.

She pointed to the files in front of her. “You know how much paperwork is involved when bringing on new Service by Agreement chefs,” she said. “Even though we’ve vetted all these people, there are still a dozen forms to fill out in triplicate for each of them before they step foot in here, every single time they show up.”

That was an exaggeration, but I didn’t call her on it. Her point was sound: Every step in planning this event was recorded in excruciating detail. That was simply the White House way.

“Plus I have to figure out which of these are our best choices.” She blew out a breath. “They’re all qualified; it’s a pain to try to decide.”

“An embarrassment of riches,” I said. “It’s a nice problem to have.”

She chuckled. “I guess you’re right.”

Placing the plate to the countertop, I said, “Mrs. Hyden has chosen the Truman china for Thursday’s dinner.”

Virgil, chopping a mango for the First Family’s lunch, leaned around to look. “That color is atrocious,” he said. “Who would want to eat from a green plate? The red-bordered china is so much nicer. Why on earth would she choose
that
instead?”

“You didn’t get the memo?” I asked, knowing full well that we’d discussed this matter earlier. “Red is inappropriate for serving dinner to citizens of Durasi.”

Virgil fixed me with a look that didn’t belong in the White House kitchen. “They are coming to the United States of America, where red is a perfectly fine color for dinnerware. That’s the problem with countries like theirs. They expect us to bend to their every whim.”

“Whether you want to believe it or not, Virgil”—my voice practically hummed with anger—“we are here to provide the best meal we can for the president and his guests. Our job is not to impose our preferences on others.”

Virgil’s bottom lip slid sideways. “I think that if people are guests here, they ought to respect our customs.”

“Red dinner plates aren’t a ‘custom,’” I corrected him. “They’re simply one of the choices we have. What’s wrong with being nice? What’s wrong with taking your guests’ sensibilities into account before making a decision?” My voice rose. “What’s wrong with taking the high road once in a while?”

He made a smirky noise. “Like you’re some kind of expert on that. You’ve been out to get me from the start. Don’t give me any of that ‘holier than thou’ garbage. I say we keep the red and let them deal with it.”

For the first time in a long time, I literally saw red. And it wasn’t from the Reagan dinner plates. More like flashing lights framing the insides of my eyes and brain. My blood pressure had to be skyrocketing to create such a vivid shade of crimson. Peripherally, I was aware of Cyan and Bucky moving in closer as though to grab me before I did anything foolish. I waved them back. I was still in control. Barely.

This was it, I decided. We would have it out now, once and for all.

“I
have
taken the high road with you, Virgil,” I said in a steady, warning voice. “More than you will ever know. You know why you’re still here in this kitchen today? Because I wanted to give you a chance. I wanted to allow you to prove yourself. Unfortunately, you continue to do so in a way that is entirely inappropriate. You have no place here.”

He put down the spoon and turned to face me fully. “I thought this was a free country. Don’t I have a right to say what’s on my mind?”

“Of course you do,” I said, clenching both fists so hard my nails bit into my palms. “We all do. You do not have the right, however, to disrupt my kitchen with your rants.” All of a sudden, I didn’t care
who
he was related to. “You have a choice, Virgil.”

Hands on hips, he towered over me. “And what choice is that?”

“I have protected Mrs. Hyden from your transgressions in the past—not for your sake, but for hers. This time my gloves are off. You don’t second-guess matters of protocol here. You don’t threaten to subvert
anything
in this house. Ever. I don’t care what your personal feelings are toward the delegates, your job is to prepare the food. And you are to do so to the best of your ability. You obviously have no desire to work here under such conditions. You asked me what your choice is? You either turn in your resignation effective immediately, or I involve Sargeant to take this to Mrs. Hyden.”

He laughed in my face.

Bucky and Cyan jerked back; I didn’t know if they’d reacted to my threat, or to Virgil’s response.

“You can’t fire me,” he said.

“Oh really?” I said, goading him now. Enjoying the moment of being able to unleash the anger I’d managed to control this long. My conscience chided me:
So much for taking the high road this time.
But I couldn’t stop myself. “Last time I checked, I was the executive chef. The boss here.” I held out my hands helplessly, purposely casual, which, I knew, would only serve to annoy him more. “Haven’t we had this discussion before? I can toss you out of here anytime I want.” I was on a roll, exhilarated by my anger.
Come on
, I thought,
try to fight back. Just try.

“You can’t fire me,” he said again. His cheeks and forehead had grown bright pink, damp with sweat. His lips spread to reveal angry, yapping teeth.

“Oh no?” I asked, oh-so-sweetly. “And why not?”

He leaned back, eyes blazing. He was furious. More than that, he wanted to be right. He wanted, desperately, to put me in my place.

“Just what I thought,” I said, purposely provoking him. “You have no response.”

He stomped his foot.

Here it comes . . .

“Because,” he said, with a triumphal burst, “Denise Hyden is my cousin.”

Behind me, Bucky and Cyan gasped.

I waited a beat. “Yes,” I said. “I know.”

More gasps from behind me. This time from Virgil, too.